As early
as the 1960s, NASA researchers began noticing that several symptoms
of spaceflight mirrored those described by the elderly on Earth.
At the same time, NASA researchers were conducting bedrest studies
to mimic and study the effects of spaceflight; they observed that
bedrest patients also experienced a number of symptoms that are
typical in the elderly (although bedrest patients rapidly recover
once they are out of bed). For example, bedrest patients and the
elderly both experience steady losses of bone mass. Through the
1980s, the NASA database on the human body's adaptation to spaceflight
grew steadily as space shuttle flights took place on a regular
basis. Increased access to Russian space physiological data confirmed
many of the patterns becoming apparent in the U.S. data set. The
increasingly apparent similarities in symptoms between the effects
of space flight and those accompanying aging led to an increasing
collaboration between this nation's premier expert in space flight
-- NASA -- and the country's premier organization for human health
-- the National Institutes of Health, or NIH.

A
posturography system measures how balance
control is changed after astronauts return to Earth
from spaceflight.

In 1989,
NASA and the NIH's National Institute on Aging, or NIA, sponsored
a joint workshop, the "Conference on Correlations of Aging
and Space Effects on Biosystems." Conference participants
included leading experts in gerontology and space physiology;
they found a number of physiological and psychological areas where
spaceflight and aging shared significant characteristic symptoms.
The workshop addressed the question of whether some aspects of
spaceflight (such as microgravity, high-energy radiation and stress)
or simulated microgravity (such as bedrest) could provide an accelerated,
acute environment for research on aging. Conference participants
determined that the space environment might yield information
about basic mechanisms of aging, and aging research might yield
new approaches to dealing with the effects of weightlessness and
the readaptation to Earth's gravity after spaceflight. Following
this conference, NASA and the NIA continued discussions, interagency
coordination and joint research. In fact, NIA was one of the 14
domestic and international partners with whom NASA worked during
the groundbreaking Space Shuttle Neurolab research flight of April
1998.

With an eye toward broadening NASA/NIA cooperation, the two organizations
sponsored a joint workshop in February 1997, "Aging and Space
Flight: Expanding the Science Base." Following the recommendations
of the workshop, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in September
1997 between the NASA Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences
and Applications, or OLMSA, and the NIA. The agreement committed
the agencies to work collaboratively on future ground-based and
spaceflight research activities.

The participation of Senator John Glenn as a 77-year-old payload
specialist provides an opportunity on STS-95 to carry out studies
on the commonalities between the effects of spaceflight and aging.
The results of the experiments carried out on Senator Glenn will
be compared with those from the other astronauts on STS-95 as
well as on other space flights. In addition, studies conducted
before flight and after flight will be compared with findings
from studies completed during the flight. Also, as a result of
the STS-95 mission, NASA scientists and those from the NIA intramural
research program have begun working collaboratively on joint research
projects. In some cases, NASA and NIA researchers will conduct
ground-based studies using subjects from the NIA's Baltimore Longitudinal
Study of Aging (BLSA). The BLSA study follows the same individuals
over the course of their adult lives. The information from these
control studies will provide a database from non-astronaut subjects
for comparison with the results from NASA studies.

Human
Research

Astronauts
learn to adjust to the microgravity environment aboard the space
shuttle.